Hall of Fame Award | 2011

Born in Halifax in 1928, Nightingale was one of Atlantic Canada’s most prolific and well-known culinary writers. She began her career in radio as a women’s commentator and then ventured into the culinary world when she published Out of Old Nova Scotia Kitchens in 1970. The book’s success led to her becoming a celebrated newspaper and magazine food columnist. She was a regular contributor to Halifax’s Chronicle-Herald and Mail-Star and was the founding food editor of Saltscapes magazine. Though she wrote other cookbooks that celebrated Nova Scotian culture, Out of Old Nova Scotia Kitchens, displayed here, became the most popular cookbook ever produced in the province. Including both food history and local recipes, Nightingale’s book was one of the first to focus on regional cuisine while also highlighting how the Mi’kmaq and successive waves of French, Loyalist, Black, German, Irish, and Scottish settlers influenced the culinary landscape of the East Coast. In 2009, Nightingale donated a significant collection of materials related to her career to Archival & Special Collections (XM1 MS A156).